aside from the rockclimbings, i am really only a fan of three things: 1) ridiculousness 2) uncertainty and 3) speculating on various apocalypti (the pluralization of apocalypse). this not only affords me an ideological escape from the ‘really real’ problems haunting modernity, but also gives me a preposterous head-start in planning my “anexact yet rigorous” escape from the clutches of whatever doomsday scenario decides to come our way. of course, my improbable plans always oscillate around the question of “which”. that is, ‘which’ impossible calamity will sound the last bell for humanity and send me running headlong into the once populated ruins of ‘merika?

grading is funny. hilarious, even. most rockclimbers agree grades are super-subjective, and yet they all maintain a firm commitment to getting them “right”. it’s like standing in line at the grocery arguing about what jennifer aniston ‘really’ thinks about brad pitt. there simply is no right answer people (except for ‘she still loves him’). why? because we all interpret the pictures of these super-hawt megastars differently. sure, we can all agree that angelina jolie is a crazy-hawt, terribly-vile, home-wrecking temptress, but the pictures of brad and jennifer are filled with an uncertain whimsy; a trace of longing in jen’s eyes mixed with brad’s love for shaking children render these almost illegible. spellbinded, we can but speculate on their true feelings. but for some, speculatings are not enough; people must set forth the really real relations, impose their grocery-line psychoanalytics on the world. Read the rest of this entry »

the weather in the bluegrass state is horrible. cold and wet. the following are from the last day out in morehead -a day in which a posse of rockclimbers raced for an impressive first ascent. sadly, only the stand start went. the sit should go before the end of the week. the race is afoot! yip yip hyeauiyeah!

the reverend works Evangelist (v9)

tissue works it shirtless.

patrick doing the first move on the stand (the fourth on the sit)

note to self: always take camera to woods (or) make friends with someone who yearns to be semi-pro photographer. photos shown courtesy of the rev.

while i retain a healthy dose of respect for the non-human (despite my decidely human-centric ontologyepistemology), i am an unabashed nature-manipulating animal when engaged in the cleaning of new areas. my practices typically include 1) clearing the ground of deadliness, 2) comfortizing spikes in areas of high dynamic contact, 3) and putting in mantle-bars to make the off-the-deck experience less frightening. heh. mantle-bars.

all three seem problematic in the exact same way (despite the third being fictional): i am imposing my will on nature. but it strikes me this human/nature question simply masks the real problem most people have with nature manipulation: i (or somebody who is not ‘them’; the Other) am imposing an experience on them.

it seems pretty easy for me to sidestep both. first, there is no tabula rasa. the world is not a blank slate waiting for the creative hands of enlightened humanity to mold it into something. it is always-already a constellation of relations, processes, and events prior to any human mediation. add to this complex web a few thousand years of human interaction and what you have is a ‘natural’ experience that is nothing more than a palimpsest of impositions.

after sticking an overhanging campus move to a jug-handle on a V4 bouldering route, franklin mcdermot of fort collins, colorado announced to gym onlookers that “he was a lot like (chris) sharma”. when asked to explain himself, the 17 year old mcdermot had this to say:

“well, you know, i’m not very good on small holds. i’m kind of a bigger guy. so i just like to find something i can sink my meathooks into, and just erragh!” (pantomimes throwing motion)

additionally, franklin compared his closest friend and bouldering partner for the day; james burnberry, to obe (carrion) for being unable to do the move. when asked if he would care to liken any of his other friends to well known climbing celebrities, franklin responded that amy gladstone was kind of like dave graham because she had good footwork and no visible muscle to speak of. franklin was last seen attempting to rip the sleeves off of his shirt while extolling the virtues of gradeless climbing to a full-body-harnessed four year old.

a few days of climbing in the ‘deep’ south makes for a good list o’ observations:

there are a lot of large crosses (you know the roman torture device/religious symbol) along i-75. are there cross contractors out there vying for work or are these things built by parishioners? i’m just curious. plus, ‘cross construction’ seems like a viable way to make up for my decided lack of piety.

there are 13 pawn shops on a 12 mile stretch of i-27 linking chattanooga and lafayette. so, if smoking crack has got you down and you feel like you’re running out of choices…

rocktown is the perfect place to make all the hacker/slasher flicks you watched over halloween into seriously palpable paranoia.

rocktown is not a good place for the weakly ego’d. if you plan to hit the road and send big numbers – DO NOT GOTO ROCKTOWN. if – on the other hand – you plan to climb sick problems in one of the coolest sandstone boulderfields in the world – rocktown is the spot.

always take two pads: the walk back is too far and you’ll definitely need/want the extra protection.

i like drama. in high school i would spread vicious rumours just so i could watch two girls slap each other to death at lunch. my friends thought i was cruel, but none of them had to eat school food so they just chalked said cruelty up to ‘cultural difference’.

but that was then – this is now. nowadays i eat whatever i want (can afford) for lunch, and avoid the dramas like the plague (though it strikes me plague avoidance was probably quite a task in the ‘plague’ years of europe, which suggests ‘avoiding something like the plague’ means ‘failing to avoid something’).

despite my efforts to skip the dramas – the dramas are out there; they are strong with the rockclimbers. here is the dramatic situation: Read the rest of this entry »